


A Grin. A Smirk. A Bad Title

by Demons_are_the_new_angels



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Drinking, F/F, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Like Jesse starts off kinda hating her, M/M, Short Chapters, i guess, i want them to be happy, probably, slow burn friendship?????
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-18
Updated: 2017-03-19
Packaged: 2018-10-07 10:06:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,207
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10357935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Demons_are_the_new_angels/pseuds/Demons_are_the_new_angels
Summary: “Cowboy! Skate with me!” (I wanted Sombra to be liked by the good guys in Overwatch so I made this.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warnings at the end of the chapter (to avoid spoilers, so if ya want the trigger warnings, ya better start scrollin. (I'll try and warn ya though))

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: google translate Spanish (I will take suggestions to make it better!)

Hanamura, April 2081  
“Cowboy! Skate with me!” Unlikely words that can change the fate of the world, or at least the fate of Overwatch. Said ‘Cowboy’ turned, and was met with a sly woman, holding out an innocent hand. She wore a purple hoodie, decorated by a white skull, looking almost to be spray painted in. Looking up to her face, Cowboy was met with some of the weirdest hair he had ever seen. Half-shaved, a weird curl on one side, and patterns shaved slightly deeper on the other side. The shaved side was accompanied by weird tech. Now prosthetics were usual, commonplace. Cowboy himself had a prosthetic hand. But tech on the head? That was odd.  
“Hey cowboy? Did you hear me?” A Mexican accent. “let's skate!” A grin, a hand.  
McCree snapped out of his haze of analysis; “I'm terribly sorry lass, but I tend to prefer the accompaniment of men,” he offered her an awkward grin, running the back of his neck in a positively uncomfortable manner. The young woman did not seem perturbed, and sat down next to the man.  
“Look,” she said, her face turning more serious, “you seemed upset when the booth man announced couples skate. I figured you might- wait is that guy skating on the wall??”  
To that McCree let out a hearty laugh, a cowboy laugh. “That would be Lúcio. The man’s a pro.”  
And he was. Glowing green in the disco lights of the roller rink, Lúcio smoked any possible competition he faced, swerving between anyone and everyone that stood in his path, leaving a trail of shocked japanese citizens and eye-rolling Overwatch agents. The two sat silently for a moment, admiring the master of the rink, before Cowboy held out a hand to the purple woman.  
“The name’s McCree,”  
A grin, “Sombra,”  
A shake of hands.  
“The couples skate is almost over…” Sombra taunted, holding her hand out once more.  
“Ah what the hell?” A grasping of hands. Two grins.  
-  
The two lazily rolled down the rink, the couples skate long over. “So,” Started the woman, in her usual mischievous accent, “Why’d I catch you looking so grim? Or is that just your usual cowboy facade?”  
A chuckle. A pause. A deep breath.  
“My partner, the one I've briefly mentioned a couple times. He isn't much liked ‘round these parts,” He didn't continue, but looked over to Sombra, who gave him an understanding look.  
-  
“I can't seem to be able to figure out this damned phone,” cowboy grunted, trying to find the contacts app.  
“here,” Sombra laughed, “hand it over,” the purple woman quickly handled the cell, and in a mere 10 seconds had scanned in her number, and held up the phone to snap a quick picture of herself.  
“Handle my picture with care Cowboy,” And with a wink, the purple woman jogged off.  
-  
McCree had spent the last 40 minutes in his hotel room, relaying his skating experience to his stoic partner, who would occasionally grunt to show he was listening.  
“She was nice Hanz, but somthin’ ‘bout ‘er was just off, yanno? For the life of me I can't put my finger on it…” he paused, contemplating, analyzing. “Was it ‘cause she wasn't Japanese? I mean we are in Hanamura, and it did off set me a bit, but I really don't think that was it…” another pause… “Hanzo, this is gonna sound crazy, but I think I recognized her.”  
-  
“Thanks a ton Luce, you're a real stand up guy,”  
“No problem Campbell! Anything for my favorite cowboy,” Lúcio was as upbeat as ever, slightly bouncing to the beat of an unfamiliar song, probably one of his own.  
-  
“Hey McCree? Mind coming down to home base for a sec? We found something”  
Lúcio’s voice was… concerned. Lúcio was never concerned. Off-put, McCree jogged down the hallway to another hotel room, and their make-shift base of operations. He opened the door to find Lùcio vigorously typing on the keyboard in front of him, accompanied by Hana, who say on a table, legs swinging as she typed away on her phone, chewing gum. Without looking up, Lúcio called for McCree to come over, excitedly, and slightly shakily waving the cowboy over to his screen. At the gesture, Hana hopped down as well, joining the audio-medic and the cowboy near the monitor.  
“So when we ran the picture against the web, we couldn't find anything. Zilch, nada: the internet had nothing. Which, if you ask me, is really creepy. This person is a ghost. I was just ready to chalk this up as one of the world’s 5 wonders, but then Hana here came up with the idea of looking into the picture itself,” At this Lúcio laughed. Not out of malice or cruelty, but out of pure absurdity that it worked. “Man my girl here never ceases to surprise. Anyways, we went digging, and after concluding that there was no hidden messages in the visual of the picture, we decided to check the coding, and we got a hit. Your girl ‘Sombra’ somehow managed to sneak a message into the picture, in the what? 30 seconds she held your phone? Man and I thought I was tech-savvy.”  
McCree say silent for a moment, contemplating what had been said to him. “I guess she was a real snake in the grass. Alright, show me the message.”

-  
Pista, 0300, Sólo el vaquero muestra.  
Rink, 3:00, only the cowboy shows.  
Well, it was 0300, and McCree was alone at the entrance of the rink.  
This is moving too fast, he thought. Damn it to hell she was supposed to be a nice girl a roller rink, no more, no less. Too fast.  
He used to crave the fast. With Hanzo he claimed everything just went too slow. It took too long. He wanted things to speed up, for the grumpy man to just be in his arms already. And when he finally was, it was worth the wait, but McCree had felt as though he had lost valuable time by beating ‘round the bush. Now he was craving for the slow he had once resented. How times change.  
The door was slightly ajar, and McCree knew nothing else to do but walk in.  
“Yanno,” the Cowboy drawled into the darkness in front of him, hand lightly resting on Peacekeeper, “There was never an actual date in that message. Have ya just been showin’ up every night, hoping i'll make it?” A flash of purple, a click. From behind him.  
“I knew when you'd come,”  
McCree was already facing her, Peacekeeper aimed at her head. She sat at a table he swore he had just passed, one leg over the other, admiring her manicure. Between the two, on the face of the table, sat two objects. One, a purple machine gun. Two, a flash drive.  
“What might all this be?” said the cowboy, gesturing slightly to the drive with his gun, before focusing back on the space back between their eyes.  
“Files. For you, on you,” She was too casual. There was a gun to her head and she was grinning.  
“Look,” She started, beginning to inspect her tech-mani, “I need you to kill me,”


	2. It's Not a Cliffhanger if I Post the Next Chapter 3 Minutes Later.

“I'm sorry are my ears full’a cotton? Did you just say ya want me to kill ya?”  
She seemed unphased, glancing up slightly at the man's incredulous look before returning the gaze to her manicure.  
“Okay ‘McCree’, let's talk. Sit down! Relax! Pat me down for weapons if it makes you feel better!” She moved her arm wide, a saleswoman presenting a client with his options.  
“Yanno I am just right and dandy standin’ at this spot here,” he glowered, eyes threatening. Hell, everything about McCree was threatening, from the gun in his hand to the damn cigar hangin’ from his lip; the man was a deadly stereotype, with an even deadlier aim.  
“Fine by me cowboy, hope your arm can make it,”  
A grunt.  
A chuckle.  
“Start talkin’”  
A grin.  
“Promise not to shoot before I speak my sixth word?” At his annoyed nod, she continued.  
“I work for Talon-”  
Pause.  
Now if this was a real cowboy movie, McCree would've cocked his gun, zeroed in on the woman’s head, and demand answers. But alas, this is not, and McCree had no need to cock his gun, for he had already cocked dear ol’ Peacekeeper before entering the room, and anyone that knows anything knows: cocking it twice it worthless, and wastes time. Which lead simply to McCree holding Peacekeeper with slight more conviction, tightening his grip on the handle.  
Unpause!  
“Now you better have a damn good reason for-”  
“I was getting to that cowboy,” Sombra waved off the threat.  
McCree was really starting to hate her (to quote a finger-gunning Mei) ‘chill attitude’.  
“You better continue, lest you find yourself with a couple more holes than usual” he practically growled, eyes going darker as he narrowed in on his shot.  
“Look,” she said, finally diverting attention from her fingernails, “I can tell you my sob story later. The gist is: I betrayed them, they're onto me, and I'd much rather crash on Gibraltar’s nukeproof, snipe-proof couch than I would a cold Palapa’s on the charred remnants of Puerto Vallarta,” At the slight loss of her cool, McCree grinned. She’s scared. Not of McCree, that's been established, but scared nonetheless. And he held all the cards.  
Sombra quieted slightly from her money outburst, looking back down at her hands, this time with more vulnerability.  
“Look,” she sighed, trying, and failing to regain her power in the situation, “I know you have this place surrounded. Any idiot would,” her gaze remained on her hands, “just have them take me in. I'll put up a bit of a fight, and click boom, I'll be gone. To Talon it will look like a rookie mistake, young hacker gets in over her head, and is presumed dead. Talon has one less agent, and Overwatch had one more.”  
McCree stood silently for a moment, considering. His gun never wavered. Finally he spoke. “If you think you're gonna be an Overwatch right off the bat you are poorly-”  
“It flowed with the sentence Cowboy,” Her voice had returned to its usual confidence, and she slowly rose from her seat, hands in the air, almost mockingly.  
“Are you ready cowboy? I have a plan.”  
Apparently, Sombra was also an expert of faking death. Good thing McCree was better.  
-  
‘I don't trust this woman McCree. Take these. Use them well.’  
Small glass vials, topped with a deadly needle, identified to McCree only by color. One, filled with the calming blue of Amari’s sleeping agent. The other, the sickly green of a deadly poison.  
‘Thank you Ana.’  
-  
“I need meat,”  
Taps. Beeps.  
“There was a takoyaki shipment last night. Its stored in the back room,”  
At the words, McCree jogged off, only to return with a small ball of squid. He pulled out one of the syringes, stabbing the needle into the squid, and removing it again once most of the green liquid had dispensed itself into the meat. He then wiped the needle on his serepe, cleaning it of any squid remnants.  
“Sombra, your arm.” He ordered, holding out his hand expectantly. Reluctantly, she forfeited her limb, releasing it into the custody of the cowboy. Quick and merciless, he stuck the same needle into her arm, pulling it out and shoving ot into one of his pockets.  
“You’re a hacker, amiright? Make sure none of this get on any sorta tape,” She nodded, her tech-ridden fingers tapping away at a summoned purple keyboard.  
“It’s done,” she grinned, “What’s next?”  
A smirk, “I kill you.”  
-  
The plan was simple, easily executed without a hitch. McCree left the rink in a huff. Sombra ran after him, pleading. They would argue. The topic was irrelevant, for there was no audio on the tapes (though Sombra, knowing little of talon’s electronic capabilities, recommended it involved talon in some sort). Sombra would desperately grab onto the Cowboy’s serepe, and in a flurry of feral instincts from an unstable ex-deadlock agent, McCree would stick a needle in her neck, killing her, before dramatically dropping the dart onto the ground. Quick slight of hand. Scared and confused, McCree would drag the body away, and out of the camera’s angle.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings at end of chapter.

Watchpoint Gibraltar, April 2081  
Sombra chided herself for not seeing it sooner. While the cowboy was a sucker for sob stories, he was also a wall when it came to Gabriel Reyes, and that apparently extended to Talon. Which lead the cocky hacker to wake up in a cell. She shouldn’t have let the damn cowboy stick her with the sleeping agent. Whatever. I can still make this work.  
Her cell was not the typical barred Dorado cell she had spent a number of nights in. No, this one was much more high-tech. The layout was relatively simple. A large room, separated by some sort of electronic barrier. In her side of the room, she had a small bed, covered in black sheets, a rug, and a pair of slippers. There was a small bathroom, of which the door had been removed, on the other side from the bed, and for that she was bregrudenly grateful. At least she had a place to shit. On the other side of the room, there was a door, a couple seats, and projected from the barrier was the cell’s controls. Thermometer, humidity, air pressure, lights, and glass control. She noted the ones that could be used against her: Thermometer and air pressure. Possibly barrier control, depending on if it did what she thought it might.  
Her first step, now an instinctual one, was to hack the Overwatch database. It was then she noted her second problem. Most of her tech was gone. She was dressed in a simple gray pair of sweatpants and a shirt, and all the removable tech was well- removed. Her gloves were gone, so even if her back and head tech could crack the Overwatch firewalls without her expertise, a feat she highly doubted possible, she couldn’t maneuver any of it. A cracked system with no data extraction. Useless, counterproductive. And so she was stuck. Alone in a room with nothing but her thoughts. A rare occurrence, and not a welcome one.  
-  
“Well her machine gun is just that- a machine gun. There’s a couple mods, but nothing too weird,” Lucio grinned at the stuff on the table below him, talking to the team, most likely excited to be entrusted with such important material. “Now the flash drive? Unbreakable. We tried every system to crack it known today and we got nothing. This girl is a walking enigma and I for one,” he added, raising his hand, “do not like it,”  
“Lucio, please keep your personal feelings about the situation-”  
The gorilla scientist was kindly waved off by Lucio, who continued his presentation, “Yeah, yeah big man, got it. So next we have the tech. Lots of it was attached to bone, and therefore irremovable, but a we were able to remove the gloves, and some armored parts of the backplates,” Behind Lucio, on the large presentation screen showed pictures of Sombra’s tech. A video played silently behind Lucio of the removal process as he continued presenting.  
“We think the gloves are what allows this ‘Sombra’ to hack into all these databases McCree saw her get into. We removed them, hoping this’ll restrict her access to our systems, but as an extra precaution, we made some slight renovations to the black box lab, to make it more of a cell. None of your electronics are going to work in there, which may include prosthetics, depending on how advanced they are, so make sure to come to me or Anglea if you need to go in there and aren’t sure if your prosthetic will function,” At this, Lucio clapped his hands together, a sign of completion. A good half of the room flinched, to which he winced, trying to quickly shake off the wave of guilt.  
“That’s all I have for you guys, if anyone has anything else they’d like to say, please feel free to come and take the podium!” He got a few sarcastic claps, most likely in response to his sarcastic bow.  
The meeting was concluded soon after, with some public-relations assignments given to the younger members of the new Overwatch. An interview over here, a gala over there. And thus, the meeting ended, and the few members of Overwatch dispersed into their various spaces of comfort, whether that be a workshop, a dorm, or the small grassy area looking out towards lighthouse, a favorite brooding place for many of the agents unable to scale roofs. McCree returned to his room, tired.  
-  
According to her loose calculations, it was about 2 weeks before Sombra saw anyone. Like a cat, she slept most of the day, not having much else to do. When she woke up, there was usually a hot meal near her bed, slowly cooling. On the second day, she tried faking sleep, to see the one delivering her meals, but when no such meal arrived, she gave up, falling back into a genuine slumber. On the 5th-ish day, she woke up hot. Too hot. On the 8th-ish day, she was shaking, convulsing violently in her bed. After that, the loose grasp she had on the time that had passed was completely lost as she fell victim to her body. She stopped pacing her cell, the pain to unbearable, leaving her bed only to lumber to the toilet and vomit, a task that Sombra was grateful happened only a few times. Occasionally, the transparent barrier, separating her from the freedom she desired so much, would turn into a mirror. She heard nothing, but assumed people had entered the room to observe her. On these occasions, she would curl up on the bed, facing away from the barrier, too sick to even scowl.  
-  
Since there were no transmissions in or out, camera feed was unavailable, and surveillance ended up consisting of taskless and bored agents wandering in to get a glimpse of their new housemate .Lucio and McCree had taken the main initiative when concerning Sombra, and the two alternated delivering meals when they saw she was asleep, a task that would’ve been more challenging if not for the expert eye of Genji Shimada. Winston regularly asked for updates, for which there was usually none, and the agents that would sometimes wander into her cell were told to make sure to turn on the one way barrier feature and to turn off the microphones that would allow the prisoner to hear what they were saying. A few objected to such precautions at first, saying this much isolation would drive her to insanity, but Overwatch protocol was not something easily objected to, and these agents eventually gave up.  
Hana was one of main objectors to this situation, and spent many hours in the cell, watching Sombra silently.  
Eventually McCree, Lucio, and Hana, were granted access to converse (interrogate) Sombra, and they walked together to her cell in jittery silence.  
“You know,” Hana started, her usual chipper voiced doused by the situation, “I’m used to people knowing a lot about me, more than I usually feel comfortable with, but I feel like she just… like she knows more. I haven’t even talked to her and I feel like she knows everything, yanno?”  
Silently, the other two nodded, reaching the first door. They entered to the familiar monitor room. It was a small room full of computer screens, showing the viewer room controls. On the wall facing the next room had the cell's view from all different angles, video feed of the dozing Sombra seen on nearly every holo-vid.   
-  
The door clicked, releasing a hiss of air as it slid open. Sombra shot up from her bed, standing in alarm, swaying, dizzied by the speed of the movement. Her face was a sickly pale, and cold beads of sweat ran down her temples and collected at her hairline.  
“Relax, relax.” The twang of a cowboy, “We’re not here to hurt’cha.”  
Two others followed in behind him. First, a young black man in his mid-20s, dreads held up loosely by a large elastic band. He wore a large green hoodie, and held an advanced-looking first aid kit in one hand, and a cane in the other, keeping him upright as he walked. Harmless. Behind him was a young korean girl, maybe in her early 20s, playing on some sort of handheld device, and avoiding eye contact with her. Nervous, but definitely not harmless. Lucio Santos and Hana Song. The new public faces of Overwatch.  
Sombra remained on guard, but slowly lowered back down to her bed (too exhausted to continue standing), eyeing the three silently.  
“Athena detected an anomaly last night,” Lucio volunteered the first words, stepping closer to the cell wall. Sombra resisted the urge to flinch, not trusting the man, “we’re here to make sure you’re okay.” His voice was gentle, and he walked towards her like you walk towards a wounded animal.  
“I am not a victim, DJ,” She growled, glaring at the man, her scowl slowly morphed into a smirk, “do with me what you will,” Sombra challenged, resting her back against the wall, crossing her legs.  
-  
Lucio was wary of the hacker, but he had a job to do, and wasn’t going to let his feelings get in the way of that. He walked through the barrier with ease, it automatically detecting his biological codes, and slowly approached the woman.  
“Do with me what you will,” she smirked. At this, he silently asked permission to sit on the bed next to her, which she carelessly granted with a wave of her hand. He sat, slowly opening the kit, keeping an eye on her at all times. She returned his wary look with one of confidence, amusement, and a hint of madness. A silent standoff, damned for Lucio from the start.  
“Your arm, he kindly ordered, one hand out, one in the kit, digging for something. He pulled out a small scanner, taking her arm and scanning her wrist, before plugging the scanner into some sort of old-age electronic. He muttered in concentration, analysing whatever data the scan had given him. He then pulled out some old-age recording device, clicking a red button with a clack.  
“As expected, patient 04932’s system has cleared out all sleeping agents and poisons since her last scan. There are possible signs of blood poisoning, which will be investigated in the immediate future” He clicked the button again, and a whirring she haddn’t noticed had started, stopped. He then turned back to Sombra. She could be in serious danger, but if I just try to drag her off to the medical wing now, she could hurt herself. Or this could all be a ploy. She could be playing us all right now. People have done worse than self inflict blood poisoning to get in this place. Shit, shit, shit. What to do, what to do.  
“I have to perform a search for any sort of open wound. I can have my associate Hana over there preform it if that would make you more comfortable,” His voice was soft again. Calming, with a twinge of nervousness. Sombra seemed unaffected, smirking.  
She looked to the small girl, smirk still prevalent on her face. “You know, I think I will have the little gamer ‘inspect’ me,”  
Lucio sighed, slightly put-off by her chipper attitude, but walked out of the cell, waving Hana in.  
“Man,” he started at McCree, “I’m supposed to be this like- this source of inspiration- or whatever to Overwatch. Like- my job, is to go out there, pump up the team, and make everyone feel better. That’s my role man, that’s what I do. I can’t afford to hold grudges, or get angry. But the way she just smirks at everything-”  
“Don’t I know it man… Girl’s been under my skin all week. Yanno what that’ll do to a man’s aim? It ain’t good,”  
“And how she just-”  
“Guys!” Hana interrupted, “You might want to see this,”  
-  
Rushed to the infirmary, Sombra lay shirtless, face down on one of the paper covered beds. Stemming from Sombra’s spinal-tech was dark blue veins. They spidered out, wrapping around her back and up her neck, growing, and pulsing slightly. Her body was cold, and she heaved up her food into a bucket below her. She felt a calming hand, and in the midst of the chaos, heard soft words in a language she didn’t understand. The hacker fell in and out of consciousnesses, feeling invasive hands on her back, the calming hand on her neck, and the churning feeling of a stomach about to vomit. Chaos. With a sting, she fell unconscious once again.  
-  
“I have her down! Get me 700 ccs of crystalloid on an IV set to 30 minutes, and prepare 24 μg/kg/hours for 96 hours of rAPC!” Silence. “Now, Lucio!” Angela hissed, “I thought you were the fast one of the two of us!”  
“Right! On it!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings: vomiting, sickness


End file.
